LEADERSHIP : ROLE, CONCEPT & FUNCTION
ROLE OF LEADERSHIP
Leadership means – to
guide or to influence into an action. In today’s highly competitive
world, it becomes important for organizations to have a good leader. The well-known
book “In Search of Excellence” concludes that every company that has maintained
its excellence over the years has done so because it had ‘a leader or two’ who
gave it its structure. This conclusion has since been reinforced in a recent
study by the Stanford Research Institute. It concluded that “12 per cent of
effective management strategy is knowledge and 88 per cent is dealing
appropriately with people”. Indeed, dealing appropriately with people is Leadership.
We know instinctively
that in every human activity involving a group of people, there is a need for
the guiding hand of a leader. The head of a family is the most ubiquitous leader
since the dawn of human history. It is well accepted that on the quality and effectiveness
of this leader, be it father or the mother, depends the progress and fortunes
of the family.
In the modern complex
society thousands of individuals are appointed or elected to shoulder roles and
responsibilities of leadership in junior, middle and senior levels in factories
and farms, schools and colleges, business and financial institutions, dispensaries
and hospitals, in civil and military organs of the State’s scientific and research
institutions and so on. On their quality and effectiveness depends the strength,
prosperity and happiness of society. In history an effective leader has always been
a ‘force multiplier’.
Leadership as the behavioural
dimension helps in the successful implementation of the strategy. It is
important to remember that leadership cannot be taught. However, a man does have
the capability to perform himself/herself-to reprogramme his/her personality. And,
it is here, that the most exciting part of human endeavour lies.
